


Look Up at the Mirror-Moon

by navaan



Category: DCU (Comics), Wonder Woman (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, DC Comics Rebirth, Domesticity, Families of Choice, Female Friendship, Gen, Heroes & Heroines, Hints of Justice League Dark, POV Female Character, Themyscira (DCU)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25519444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: From Themyscira to Man's World.
Relationships: Diana & Hippolyta (Wonder Woman), Diana (Wonder Woman)/Steve Trevor (Background), Etta Candy & Diana (Wonder Woman)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28
Collections: Every Woman 2020





	Look Up at the Mirror-Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nowrunalong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowrunalong/gifts).



Diana's hands find the right place to grip on Aello's shoulder. The older Amazon still stands a near hand taller than the princess.

But height and brute strength alone are not all it takes to win hand-to-hand combat.

She had learned it the hard way - landing face first in the sand over and over again.

This time, her feet remain planted into the ground and she uses her momentum to overwhelm her sparring partner and wrestle her to the ground.

Holding Aello down is the next challenge.

She knows the right technique and it's easy enough to weave her arms around Aello's hips... But a horse whinnies - it's her mother's beloved mare - and Diana lets her attention drift to her Queen, her mother, arriving at the scene and letting her eyes glide over the training field. She's a sight to behold - and taking it in is enough of a distraction to give Aello an opening.

Diana finds herself flying through the air, landing hard on her side, sand in her mouth and hair.

She coughs.

"Don't lose concentration, Diana," Philippus admonishes.

The princess bites her lips and nods. 

Aello holds out her hand, her face graced by a bright smile. Diana takes it, lets herself be pulled to the feet.

"Don't give up," Aello advises. "You're getting better every day."

She nods, throws a glance at her mother.

Her mother smiles.

Diana smiles back.

She knows she's young. 

But one day, she wants to be as radiant and amazing as her mother, the wise queen of all Amazons.

* * *

Heavy rains descends upon Themyscira. Diana watches it with wide eyes from her spot in the archway that leads out onto her chambers terrace.

She loves the palace, perched atop a hill in the middle of their city. When she’d been very little her mother had held her in her arms and shown the view to her: “All this might one day be yours.” The child hadn’t known back then that with their god bestowed immortality she would only be queen when her mother gave up her title or lost her immortal life in battle or tragedy.

One day though, maybe she would make her own household.

"Rain?" Hippolyta asks from behind her. 

She must have returned from Council Hall minutes ago. She's still wearing the purple cloak that marks her as queen.

"Yes," Diana says and looks out into the night. She can see the mounting waves of the sea in the distance, the dark mountains of clouds had been hanging above their Island.

"It rarely gets this bad," Diana muses. She likes the smell, the sounds, the wildness. It’s a break from tranquility and with all the uncomfortable humidity that hung over them for days the thunderstorm brings freshness and reprieve too. 

"Not a tempest yet, Diana," Hippolyta answers. "Heavy rain. It'll pass and let the sun shine again. And plants will grow, our rivers swell with sweet water. We need the rain."

The wind picks up and blows Diana's hair astray and does not even halt before her mother's majesty, blowing strands this way and that. 

"I know," Diana whispers. She's not afraid of the storm that might sweep over their Island. But the sudden violent bursts of nature's shifting moods can take her breath away. "It's ever changing. Order and chaos. Opposing and locked together."

"Love," her mother says and presses a kiss to her temple and then wraps her arms around her shoulders. "Never forget it. That's what loves it. Balance."

Diana knew there were endless volumes of books in their libraries speaking of love - messy things, highest virtue, all true love. She knew the bonds of love that tied her to her mother, her sisters, her occasional lovers — but had never entirely learned to grasp how it could be all those things — flighty and eternal, order and chaos.

Together they watched the rain subside as suddenly as it had started up. The clouds cleared.

Only the fresh smell in the air remained of heaven's outburst.

The light of the moon lit the terrace and together they looked up at it.

"Order restored," he mother said and ruffled her hair as if she was that little child again, looking out with her over the lands that she now never wanted to be her own if it meat losing her mother..

* * *

She learns how contradicting love is when it carries her away from the shores of Themyscira to new shores.

It’s not her mother giving up the throne or losing her life. It’s Diana leaving home, not sure she’ll ever set foot in the palace again.

* * *

It’s fitting in her mind that she learns to navigate how to live in man’s world not from Steve Trevor but from the women who have lived here all her lives. Steve’s happy enough to see her get along with Etta Candy.

When they meet for the first time, Etta is a short, stocky woman with a military haircut and an understanding of how to get things done. 

“An island of women? And they all look like her?” she asks Steve like it’s something wondrous and strange. “Can I sign-up somewhere?”

It’s a joke that at the time gets lost in translation on Diana but still the beginning of one of her most treasured friendships. 

Etta’s the one who along with Steve takes her shopping for the very first time. They get her new clothes and all the things she’ll need.

Later — when they are joined by anthropologist and archaeologist Barbara Ann Minerva who understands the language of Themyscira and helps Diana understand the new language Steve and Etta are speaking better and Diana makes another friend — they go out together, the three of us and Steve. Diana learns about new foods, about ice cream and sun bathing, about the differences of military and civilian life.

They thwart an attack on a shopping mall by accident, help find a lost little “princess” at a “ren faire” and watch Diana’s first display of fireworks together. 

“I would love to see Themyscira one day,” Barbara Ann tells her, her hand in Etta’s and Diana smiles. It’s a time of beginning and newness and strong bonds and none of them can know that for Barbara Ann meeting Diana is the beginning of another journey, the beginning of her obsession with the divine and her first directed step towards becoming the Cheetah. 

Diana will never stop to think of her as a friend, even during their worst fights.

* * *

“It’s amazing,” Lois shouts against the wind.

Her arms are wrapped around Diana’s shoulders, they’re flying through the air above Kansas, closing in on the Kent farm. Lois throat laughter is infectious. 

“Thank you,” she says when Diana sets her down in front of the farm.

“For the flight home? Clark must fly you all the time.”

Lois chuckles and shakes her head. “It’s different, and will never get old to those of us who can’t just hop into the air and go. But that’s not what I meant. Thank you for lending me your power,” she points at the golden perfect that’s now tied up against her hip. “What that man blabbed at us about the new Intergang operation will be very useful.”

Diana nods and smiles. She respects Lois Lane and her need to uncover the truth, to never let up if there’s something to find under the surface that needs to be brought to light.

“We should sit down for an interview if you’re ever willing,” Lois continues.

“About what?” Diana asks. “There’s been so much written and talked about me already.” 

“Who are your heroes?” Lois says deadpan. She has clearly thought about this already. “Who are the people who shaped who you are, who you look up to — if there are any.” 

Clark steps onto the porch, Jon at his side, and waves.

Diana waves back and Lois turns around to look, her dark eyes full of love and pride.

“You know, Lois,” Diana says, “I can’t arrange a talk with my mother or any of the other teachers I had, or the women who bet me in foot races when I was younger. But I can get you an interview with one of my heroes.”

Lois smiles. “Do, please. Anyone you consider a hero is someone I’d love to talk to.”

Diana nods. She will hand her Etta’s number later.

“Come on in,” Lois says and gestures towards the house and where Clark and their son are waiting.

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“Won’t be an intrusion,” Clark calls out — not eavesdropping, just _hearing_ them talking out here without having to strain himself.

“See?” Lois grins and opens her arms wide. “Eat with us. It’s the least I can do. It means a lot to me to know someone like you has his back in that craziness that is Justice League business.”

She won’t decline the invitation.

Not just Clark’s, also Lois’ friendship means a lot to Diana.

* * *

Over the years she works with many exceptional heroes, meets many women who make a difference and yet there are always new sides to the world to discover.

It’s Diana who takes Mera out for coffee, shows her to a nice shop hidden away in a less obvious neighborhood and offers her an ear. 

“Queen of Atlantis?” she asks. “How does that feel?”

“Considering I’m sitting on dry land, wondering how Arthur and his rebellion are doing out there… Unreal. Queen in Exile. It’s a title. A statement that’ll make facts, I hope.”

Diana has no doubt that Mera will live up to the title when the time comes.

* * *

“Let me show you.” 

Zatanna takes her hand, dips her finger into the waxy color and then guides her hand as they write the arcane symbols together. 

“You don’t usually use magic like this,” Diana comments. She has only recently discovered her bond to magic, her own connection to Hecate. Since then she and Zatanna and their compatriots in the special Justice League team to deal with magic, have gone through many shattering adventures. Her understanding of the mystic is different than that of many others — as demigod, daughter of Zeus, as a child of the Amazons, as foe of the witch of legends, Circe. She had always had her brushes with magic.

But this is different.

This is learning a new layer.

“We brought chaos to magic,” Zatanna reminds her.

“Because order was destroying everything.” She’s referring to Dr. Fate and the lords of order. “It’s not order against chaos and chaos against order. It’s about finding a new balance.”

Zatanna finishes another circled painting on the floor and then grabs a candle to light. “That sounds pretty, Diana. But magic isn’t pretty.”

“Nothing,” she says, “is always pretty. That doesn’t mean it isn’t wondrous. Like a tempest.”

“A natural disaster more like it,” Zatanna muttered and then commanded: “ _Wohs eht yaw._ ”

A light lit up the circle they’d made, lines of arcane energy crawled across the map they’d placed into the middle of it, showing roads and hidden pathways, one shone in a golden light.

“That’s where we need to go,” Diana concluded.

“A path set for us,” Zatanna said.

“Not tonight though.” Finding the artifact could wait for at least another day. “You need to relax.”

“I slept…” Zatanna protested.

“You need to take your mind off things,” Diana disagreed. “Otherwise your sleep will be as restless as your days.”

Zatanna sighed, her shoulders sagging. “What do you have in mind?”

“Oh.” Diana grinned. “You will like it.”

Dinah Lance had suggested it, actually. A new club was opening. A good opportunity to dance and let off some steam, she’d called it.

Diana couldn’t agree more.

Sometimes the magic you needed was just music, movement and a girls night out.

* * *

Commander Etta Candy sits down in the sand beside Diana. It's night in man's world and the moon shines brightly above them.

"Took some hits?"

Diana wants to laugh. Giganta had crushed her into the concrete of L.A.s streets today, before she'd found a way to take the giantess down, force her back to human size.

"I can take it," Diana laughs.

"I know, I know," the woman agrees. She looks different from the woman Diana met in the beginning. These days she wears her hair in long dreadlocks bound up at the top of her head. She’s come a long way to be Commander. "Nothing you can't take. Balance restored."

Love wells up in Diana's heart for this friend, who has been through many fights with her, who is a sister in man's world to her, who has loved and lost and goes on believing.

Diana hugs her with the impulsiveness she knows to trust.

"My mother would like you, Etta," she said. "I hope one day you can meet her."

She looked up at the moon.

Knowing that somewhere, somewhen her mother, her sisters who are locked away in Themyscira would look up towards that same moon and think of their champion in man's world - and have no reason to be ashamed of her deeds.

“Come inside. Steve’s waiting with food.”

“He cooking?”

“Sometimes. We order in with superhero pick-up delivery most times,” Diana imparts with a grin.

She likes her house by the sea, with the view of the beech and the open rooms.

It’s not the palace of Queen Hippolyta, but it’s _hers_. Steve built it for Diana and Diana has made it her home, her household, her place of rest and belonging, of balance.

While she let’s Etta in via the terrace, waving at Steve who is busy preparing coffee inside, he wonders what her mother would think of it all, the house with its rarely used modern kitchen and the sprawling living room, the family she gathered, the friends she made. 

Love fills her heart as she looks up at the mirror-moon and thinks of her old home that shaped her, and the new one that has shaped her further.


End file.
